


just a boy with a new haircut

by dutty (vodka)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Beards (Facial Hair), Cheating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodka/pseuds/dutty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn has a goatee. Harry's into it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a boy with a new haircut

**Author's Note:**

> -Mentions of Zayn/Perrie (Zayn cheats)  
> -Marijuana usage  
> -This is very silly. I apologise in advance  
> -Written in loving memory of Zayn's goatee 2013-2013

“This is new.” Harry’s tracing it with his fingertips before he’s even come to terms with what he’s looking at. 

Zayn’s got a beard. More of a goatee, really, Harry reckons, and it’s rough and prickly, pricklier than the thick stubble Zayn’d had the last time Harry saw him. He’s always liked touching Zayn’s face, whether it’s smooth or with a gradient of five o’clock shadow, because Zayn’s practically a piece of art Harry’s allowed to touch and he’s always been too handsy, but this, it really is _new_. Harry’s never seen Zayn with so much facial hair, even if he’d always known something like this was technically possible with the way he’d always taken the piss about how quickly Zayn’s beard grew in, which has always led to Zayn teasing right back about how slowly Harry’s didn’t.

Zayn laughs as Harry trails his finger along his moustache, eyes bright and fond. “D’you like it then? Might be able to grow your own someday.” And then Zayn’s touching Harry, too, pinching his smooth chin. Harry and Niall are the only two who haven’t been able to sprout more than an embarrassing smattering of upper lip and chin hair that wouldn’t look out of place on a little old lady shopping for biscuits at Sainsbury’s. 

But Harry still regrets shaving this morning because Zayn looks so _grown up_ like this and Harry feels out-manned or something even though he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t pull it off like Zayn does, because Zayn’s definitely pulling it off, still unquestionably the prettiest person in any room. 

“This is getting a little weird, mate,” Zayn says, and Harry realises he hasn’t really been saying anything, has just been staring intently at Zayn and pawing at his face in front of the ice maker on the floor the band’s staying on. 

He drops his hand. “Sorry, just took me by surprise, is all.” 

Zayn looks amused. “That bad, is it?”

“No,” Harry shakes his head, “I really like it, actually. Makes you look like a dapper villain.”

Zayn laughs. “Pez hates it; made her break out into a rash on the side of her face, and you know how pale she is. Looked bloody awful, I felt so bad, but their makeup artist got her a cream that gets rid of it so it’s okay now. Promised her I’d shave it by the next time we get together, though.” 

The thought of Zayn’s rough beard dragging against skin makes Harry’s imagination run wild, makes him wonder if Perrie’d got angry red scratches along the curves of her breasts, down the flat planes of her stomach, maybe even on the soft skin of her inner thighs. And Harry doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it so much, but he is. He’s never been with someone who had a beard. He wonders if his skin would get all irritated if Zayn kissed him for too long. Wonders if he’d like the rough feel of it, suddenly curious about if it’d feel different than it did under his fingertips if it rubbed against his cheek or his neck. 

He shakes his head, running his hands through his hair and trying to get his thoughts clear and his mind out of the gutter. He’s pretty sure he’s got that look on his face that all the other lads know him well enough to recognise, the face that makes Niall scoff and ask Harry if he’s ever not thinking about sex after someone’s said something that could be misinterpreted and Louis says something witty while Harry thinks about it too much. 

Zayn gives him a strange look and goes about filling up his ice bucket. 

“What are you up to tonight?” Harry gets his phone out, pre-emptively sending his mum a text to let her know he’d reached Melbourne in one piece, coming up with the excuse that they’d have to reschedule the Skype chat Harry’d promised her because he was too tired and already in bed. 

“Nothing really,” Zayn says. “Was just going to read or watch a film or something. Why?” 

“Was wondering if you might want to hang out for a bit? I missed your cheekbones a lot,” Harry gives the most charming grin he can muster, dimples deep as he swipes his thumb over the sharp jut of said cheekbone, sliding it down until it catches on the tuft of hair on Zayn’s chin. 

“As long as you promise not to feel my beard up the whole time,” Zayn chuckles, shaking his head like Harry’s his overbearing little brother. Harry doesn’t know how that makes him feel. “How was LA?”

“Good,” Harry says. He finds himself stuck for a moment. Zayn’s lips look much redder and fuller framed by all that dark hair. It’s unfairly distracting. “Got some writing done.” 

Zayn scratches at his beard with his tattooed hand, and something about that’s just ridiculously hot and rugged looking in a way that Harry’d never associated with Zayn before. Zayn raises a thick eyebrow. “You sure you don’t just want to hang out because you want to stare at my face?” 

“Isn’t that usually the reason I want to spend time with you?” Harry quickly recovers, going for cheeky. He’s not entirely certain Zayn buys it one hundred per cent, but Zayn doesn’t push it either even though he’s got that resigned look he sometimes gets when he feels like everyone around him is absolutely insane and he’s got no choice but to accept it. Zayn has his manic weirdo moments, too, moments where he and Louis drive everyone else mad with pranks or he roughhouses with Niall and Liam, but he’s always had a quieter energy about him, often felt the need to recharge his batteries by curling in on himself and enjoying silence more than the others did. 

Harry really does feel like the annoying little brother now, taunting and pulling at Zayn’s beard, which is the last thing you really want to feel like when you can’t stop wondering if someone’s beard would tickle your balls if they sucked you off. 

Harry wills himself to act like a normal adult when they’re in Zayn’s room. 

Zayn gets a bottle of champagne out of the minibar and sticks it into the ice bucket. It’s the good stuff, _Veuve Clicquot_ , and Harry’s certain Zayn’d packed it in his luggage from England for the sole purpose of being able to drink alone in his room when the mood struck, because Zayn’s over the phase of gulping down hard liquor that burned through weak chase because you just want to get drunk as fast as possible, has got into unwinding with bubbly or rosé and a blunt no matter how much Liam makes fun of him for trying way too hard to be like Drake, like Liam’s not the one blacking out on pink drinks at Funky Buddha whenever they’re back home. 

Zayn shakes a fag from the pack of _Marlboros_ on the side table, disappearing onto the balcony for a quick smoke. The fans’ screams trickle through the door for the scant seconds it’s open, and Harry wonders how they can even make Zayn out from so high up even though it’s been this way for the past two years. 

He kicks his trainers off and sprawls out on the big bed until Zayn’s back inside, heading straight for the champagne bottle and getting the cork out without much fuss, which Harry finds quite admirable because he’s damaged chandeliers before, trying to uncork champagne. Zayn takes a swig straight from the bottle, and Harry can’t stop his mind from wandering again as he watches Zayn’s bobbing Adam’s apple, the way the bottle’s pushed against his lips. 

He remembers sneaking bottles of _VK_ someone bought from Asda into the X Factor house, trading sips back and forth as he and Zayn talked about girls, ending up drunk and giggly and no more knowledgeable about relationships than they were before. And now they can afford to chug £100 champagne straight from the bottle in their own posh hotel suites, no more splitting rooms when they’re not on a bus or thinking _Grey Goose_ was as extravagant as it got. Harry doesn’t know that he’ll ever get over how far they’ve come. 

“You want some?” Zayn gets onto the bed with him, handing the bottle over. 

“You sure you want to share that?” Harry does the polite thing even though he very much wants some. He’s always up for nice champagne. 

“Like I’m going to just drink an entire bottle of champagne in front of you,” Zayn rolls his eyes. "Brought two bottles,” he adds ruefully. 

“Cheers, mate.” Harry doesn’t know why he’s thinking that sharing a bottle is kind of like kissing, because they share water bottles on stage all the time and it’s never felt like this. But he still thinks about it as he gulps it down, thinks a real kiss would be better because he’d get to feel Zayn’s stupid goatee against his own smooth face. Harry thinks Zayn’s stupid villain beard really does have evil powers or something because it’s turning Harry’s brain into scrambled egg. 

But Zayn’s always been proof that it’s possible to be too attractive. 

“Have you seen _The Great Gatsby_ yet?” Zayn asks after a while. “I’ve got it on my laptop. Finally got around to reading it over the break so I can watch it now.”

Harry has seen it, and just thinking about the ending makes him sad, but he’ll watch it again with Zayn because the first time Zayn sees it will be with Harry, and that seems important somehow, and he just wants Zayn to do whatever he likes, get comfortable with Harry because it’s been a while since they spent time together, just the two of them. 

Zayn gets his MacBook out of his bag, and Harry realises he’s halfway decided that he wants to pull Zayn. He looks at the engagement ring on Zayn’s finger and it doesn’t stop him from thinking about the one time he and Zayn had gone too far, that last time they’d been in Australia that they’ve never acknowledged. Sometimes he wonders if Zayn even remembers it because they’d both been drunk, but he thinks waking up in bed naked with one of your best mates and a wet spot between you hints that _something_ happened. And maybe Zayn wonders if Harry remembers, too, because he’s been equally tight-lipped about it. 

It’s horrible, but when Harry gets like this, he can’t stop. He thinks Zayn and Perrie are good for each other even if he’d gone on the pull with Zayn several times since he was with her, has always justified that sort of thing with a ‘not his relationship, not his business’ approach, and now Zayn’s been trying to make it work for real, shocked them all by getting a tattoo that looks just like her on his arm and then asking her to marry him shortly after. None of the lads exactly think it’s a great idea, but they’re supportive nonetheless. And Harry likes Perrie, he really does, but he doesn’t think it’s enough to stop him from fucking about with Zayn if he can. 

Zayn gets back into bed, sidling close enough that their knees are touching so that they can both see the screen. Harry hopes an opportunity doesn’t present itself, because there’s no way he won’t take it. He’s always got off too much on the chase, the more difficult it is the more satisfying when clothes come off. It’s the one part about himself that drives him crazy, how he tries so hard to be a good person otherwise but when it comes to relationships it all goes to shit because he just wants what he wants and he finds it hard to stop until he gets it. 

He’s tipsy halfway through the film, and Zayn doesn’t look much better, bobbing along to the admittedly brilliant soundtrack. His tolerance has gone to shit these days because Perrie’s a teetotal and Zayn doesn’t really drink around her, and Harry’s still finding it hard to shake the title of ‘lightweight’ despite all the practice he puts in. The champagne bottle’s almost empty, balanced on top of the alarm clock, condensed water pooling beneath it and dripping down the clock’s sides. 

“You want to smoke?” Zayn pauses at the part where Gatsby’s pulling all his clothes out of his closet and throwing them down onto Daisy as she laughs and looks more in love than it turns out she is. 

Harry shrugs, but Zayn’s already up and packing the vaporiser they’ve all passed around in hotel rooms. It makes the weed smoke smell kind of like popcorn. Zayn takes the first hit, eyelashes dark against his cheeks and his cheeks hollowed. The beard and tattoos make him look even more like a brooding artist than usual, and Harry wishes he could photograph this moment, because Zayn really is beautiful. He turns the vaporiser towards Harry as he restarts the film. Harry shakes his head and Zayn shrugs and takes another hit. 

“Remember when we went clubbing the last time we were here?” Harry doesn’t know why he says it. He told himself he wasn’t going to go for it if no opportunity presented itself, but instead he’s making one. 

Zayn gives Harry a guarded look, like if he’s trying to figure out if Harry’s just talking about the club or what happened after when the girl they’d been trying to talk into a threesome backed out and Zayn pulled Harry into his room and onto the bed. 

“Yeah,” Zayn forces a quick smile that’s a little goofy looking because he’s high. “That was a good night.” 

“Was it?” Harry twists so that he’s on his side, looking more at Zayn than he is Leonardo DiCaprio. He knows he’s looking at Zayn’s mouth a lot, looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes like a classic example in a book on flirting (not that Harry reads those, mind you, but he’ll admit he’d Googled that sort of thing a lot when he was thirteen and trying to figure things out because it was hard for an awkward boy with lots of girl friends and no _girlfriends_ in Holmes Chapel). It’s not subtle at all. He’s tipsy enough not to care. 

“You’re being really weird today, aren’t you, Styles?” Zayn runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, tangling them in the curls and scratching at his scalp. 

Harry just smiles, reaches up to touch Zayn’s beard. 

Zayn rolls his eyes, but they’re bright with fondness as he has another go at the vaporiser. And then Harry just fucking goes for it, pulling Zayn in by the back of the neck and crashing their mouths together. Zayn’s shocked, his open mouth puffing smoke into Harry’s as he reels back. 

“What the fuck, Harry?” the laptop slides off his lap, lying tilted up. 

“Just wanted to shotgun,” Harry says nonchalantly. He’s actually shitting himself on the inside; he’d thought that would go a lot smoother than it actually. At least Zayn loves him, loves all the lads, enough to just be cold and weird with him for a few days should he get upset. Harry can handle that; he’s no stranger to Zayn’s strops and glacial shoulder, although he’s never been quite this embarrassed before. 

“Just wanted to shotgun?” Zayn scoffs, “Is that really the best you could come up with?”

Harry shrugs. He thinks he’s jetlagged. It’s what he’ll claim when he wakes up and Zayn’s still mad at him. “Sorry. I can just go. I’m tired anyway—”

“You’re just going to fuck off then, after you haven’t said anything about that night for a year and now all of a sudden you remember it and want a repeat because apparently getting off on beards is a thing for you?” 

Harry feels like someone splashed cold water on him. He sometimes forgets how well Zayn knows him, silently observing and keeping everything tucked away. He feels like an arse now, as he rightfully should, but his mouth just won’t stop running: “It’s not like you’ve ever said anything about that night either. I didn’t even know if you remembered!” 

“Even if I didn’t remember, the fact that I let you stick a finger up my arse was hard to ignore the following day, I’ll tell you that much.” 

“It was your suggestion,” Harry bolts upright. “And it was actually two fingers. You said you liked that when you get head.” 

“What the fuck, Harry.” Zayn reaches for the champagne bottle, swallowing the rest of it down in two big gulps. “This is so fucked up.”

“Yeah, well if you apparently knew what I was up to, you didn’t have to hang out with me.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d actually make a move?” 

“When _don’t_ I make a move, Zayn? This is unfair. This is rubbish. I should’ve Skyped my mum.” 

Zayn laughs, his shoulders shaking almost against his will. It makes Harry laugh, too. He almost misses it when Zayn says, “I guess I wanted you to make a move. I don’t know.” 

Harry flings himself through this window of opportunity, leaning in to kiss Zayn’s mouth. And this time he gets what he wants, feels the rasp of beard against his face. It’s sharp, he definitely sees why it’d left Perrie’s skin red and raw. But Harry likes how it feels. It’s different. It’s new. He likes it a lot. 

“You really like this shit, don’t you?” Zayn says when he pulls away. “You’re fucking rubbing your face all over it, like a cat or something.” 

Harry’s cheeks are practically burning. “It’s nice. I like how it feels.”

“Yeah? Don’t know why I’m surprised, you like it a bit rough, don’t you?” Zayn’s got a look in his eye that’s making Harry’s cock throb where his jeans are cutting into it. 

Zayn’s suddenly pulling his shirt off. It’s funny how they’ve both got so many tattoos since the last time. He tells Harry to get his shirt off, too, and then Harry’s on his back, Zayn on top of him, sucking at the skin of his neck and dragging his beard all over it. It definitely feels different than it had against his cheek: rougher, itchier almost. He can’t get enough of it, throwing his head back to let Zayn have more room to explore. His neck’s always been a spot that drives him crazy. 

Zayn moves lower, shifting down between Harry’s spread legs, purposefully moving down with his chin against Harry’s skin, scratching a path down Harry’s chest so he can get a nipple between his teeth. Harry bites his lip, biting back a moan as his hips buck off the bed, reaching down to hold onto the longish hair on Zayn’s head that he hasn’t buzzed off. 

Harry doesn’t think he can take this teasing. He isn’t even sure if it’d ever really been about the beard (well, it had been since he really does like it) or if it was just an excuse to go after what’s always been in the back of his mind, a mix between not knowing if he was being rejected and wanting more. He’s thinking too much, and Zayn brings him back to the grit of it, rubbing his stupid villain goatee against Harry’s spit-wet nipple, and Harry doesn’t know how he doesn’t come, because it feels like nothing he’s ever felt before—almost painful and weird and amazing. 

Zayn looks up at him, an amused smirk on his face. “You really are quite odd, you know.” 

Harry would like to point out that Zayn’s the one torturing him with his facial hair, now tickling down Harry’s belly towards his unbuttoned jeans, but he’s sort of lost the ability to be coherent. Doesn’t stop him from blurting: “You want to fuck?” 

“You do that now?” Harry isn’t oblivious to the jealous tone Zayn’s voice takes on, the unspoken _’didn’t want to do it last time’_ hanging in the air like he’d been anymore open to the idea of a cock in his arse (fingers were alright, though, apparently). 

Harry makes a vague gesture with his hands. “I’ve tried it, ‘m not an expert or anything.” He squeezes his hand into his pocket, gets his wallet out and throws a condom at Zayn. “You got lube?” 

“Yeah,” Zayn says, already shoving off him and going to fetch it from wherever it is. Harry takes the opportunity to wriggle out of his jeans and boxers, and when Zayn comes back, he’s naked, too. 

Harry opens his legs, and he blushes so hard that he burns from the tips of his ears to his chest when Zayn looks down at him, at his hard cock and his balls and his arsehole, Jesus Christ, what are they doing? Zayn pulls Harry’s leg so that his hips slide lower against the bed, makes it easier for Zayn to slide a wet finger up inside him, and Harry can’t help but look at the engagement ring on the other hand that’s curled loosely around his thigh. 

This is mad. He and Zayn are always an unpredictable combination, but this, this is madness and Harry’s loving every second of it. Louis and Zayn are partners in crime because they’ve got an army of sisters and come from practically the same place and love comic books and staying home with their girlfriends, and Zayn and Liam are pretty much the same person in a lot of ways, and Zayn and Niall just get on really well, and then there’s Zayn and Harry who are just a bit too sensitive and moody and quiet and fundamentally the same and yet opposite, a weird tension marring everything they do. 

But still, Harry has this. Harry has this thing he and Zayn have that they can’t seem to get away from even a year later, and somehow that’s _better_ than what everyone else gets. He gets this side of Zayn no one else does and he loves it, he loves that the fans or the tabloids don’t know about this, like its their precious secret thing because Zayn doesn’t even go out with just Harry very often anymore, doesn’t like how much crazier the fans get when Harry’s around or how Harry lets them claw at his arms and poses for every picture.

He squeezes his eyes shut when Zayn works another finger into him. They’ve only got one packet of lube and Zayn’s trying to be sparing with it. 

“’m not gonna fit in you, babe,” Zayn breathes into Harry’s ear, “you can’t even take two fingers.”

“Just put it on your dick? Forget the fingers, I can probably take it.” 

Zayn looks like he wants to argue, but he just shrugs because he’s horny and Zayn thinks with his dick more than he really should, if this whole thing’s to be taken into consideration. He puts the condom on, gets his cock as slick as he can, and Harry almost flies through the headboard when he gets the head in. It hurts and he’s gone so tight that Zayn’s not getting any further. 

That somehow doesn’t even stop Zayn from giving a few quick thrusts and coming whilst barely inside. Harry’s appalled. Zayn tells him to fuck off and Harry can see the condom’s torn on him anyway, bare skin visible through ripped latex, so it’s probably for the best that he couldn’t get all the way inside. 

But Zayn makes up for it, lets Harry fuck his mouth as hard as he likes, and Harry discovers Zayn’s beard really _does_ scratch at his balls when he sucks Harry off. 

 

 

 

Zayn shaves the goatee two days later. Much to Harry’s disappointment, he’d got bored with it. It doesn’t stop Harry from being all over him, though, but Zayn supposes that’s just another thing he’s got to live with at the moment.


End file.
